It's obviously March, and it's still raining in Seattle. At this time of last year, the cherry blossoms are still budding, but it is still cold and windy. My mood continued to slump like the temperature. From the hometown of Jiangnan, I just wanted to have a hot bowl of soup noodles, hit it with my friends, and came to this Guizhou small restaurant.
The first time I knew about Qiang Cai was because of the silk doll in "China on the Tip of a Tongue." At that time, I was full of curiosity and longing for this taste that looks full of multiple tastes and its rich mix.
Later, I heard that old friends teased that their Guizhou roommates could not survive the Da Mo, because they could no longer taste the spicy and addictive taste of their hometown. It is said that the biggest fun of their dormitory at that time was to try her various hot and astonishing products to ease her homesickness.
But to say that the first time I ate Qiang Cai was actually in Seattle on the other side of the ocean, and it was also unexpected to me. After eating Qian for the first time, I went home and couldn't wait to search for various famous dishes in Guizhou. At that time, he was drooling with pictures of Zhenfeng glutinous rice, intestine flour, and generous stinky tofu.
Come to Qian again and find that the menu of soup noodles has the option of "sour soup". You know, before I knew about Qian cuisine, the most famous dish in my mind was sour soup fish. I immediately asked for a bowl of sour soup soft whistle and added a new appetizer of saliva chicken.
I was blown by the cold wind outside, and I took the steaming sour soup noodles at the boss, and I drank a sip of the soup impatiently. The soup was very fresh, and the acidity was just neutralized. It's wonderful, it complements each other without conflict.
As a diner, I'm always curious and can't help but inquire about the secret of this soup. The owner explained that the soup in their house was cooked with pork bones, old hens, lamb bones, and more than a dozen flavors of spices for four to six hours, with absolutely no MSG added. The sourness of sour soup comes from tomato and chilli pepper and a little rice vinegar. Spicy chili is marinated with fresh, thick red peppers, ginger, garlic cloves, and white wine. It is a unique feature of Guizhou cuisine. The bad peppers used in the shop were marinated by the owner himself.
I was immersed in the wonderful beauty of the sour soup, and then I realized a question. What is the difference between a soft whistle noodle and an ordinary noodle? After asking the boss, the soft whistle is a famous local snack. It is cut into small cubes with pork belly, then marinated with salt cooking wine and sweet wine, and fried in a pan. This shop uses the teriyaki method to cook it into the pot after frying. It's no wonder that it makes me taste the taste of the gangbang teriyaki that I miss. Although the taste is not the same at the entrance, but because the soft whistle is small cubes, the fat oil is exhausted after frying, but it looks less greasy.
Each bowl of noodles comes with three plates of side dishes: homemade sour soup pickled radish, pickles and spicy and crispy. Pickled radish and kimchi are sour and delicious, with a unique flavor.
The taste of the saliva chicken was beyond my expectation. The tenderness of the chicken was well controlled, and it did not reflect the essence of "spicy" of the Guizhou cuisine, but took a different style. Friends at the table said they liked it very much because the sesame and peanut butter were added to make it very fragrant. The boss said that he made this adjustment after he found that many people were not so spicy after coming to the United States. He soaked the peppers for one night and then removed the hottest chili seeds in the middle, and then mixed the fried spicy and crunchy liquid The wonderfully fragrant oil obtained from special chili oil. Those who like to eat hemp sauce may be fond of this dish.
For Qiang cuisine, Zunyi's mutton flour is also very famous. It is said that it became famous in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, and its roots are unknown. There were only rumors that Zunyi was named Yelang Kingdom at that time, and the local people were very likely to get rheumatic typhoid in the Dalou Mountains. At that time, the medical doctor Zhang Zhongjing boiled the mutton with the cold-relief medicine, and then put it in rice flour made of rice and distributed it to people. People found that mutton powder not only protects against the cold, but also has a good taste.
Last time I ate a bowl of lamb powder with skin. The taste of the noodle soup made me very impressed. The delicious flavor of the mutton powder burst into the mouth, a bowl of hot noodles went down, and the coldness of winter was swept away. The owner said that lamb with skin is the most expensive, but it is also the best for cooking soup. The reason why he does not want to switch to lower-cost lamb is to hope to restore the taste of his hometown as much as possible, but nostalgia for food.
Although my ancestral home is not Guizhou, this bowl of noodles full of sincerity and the thoughtful and thoughtful service in the shop is equally warm and hearty.
Qian Noodle
Address: 13510 Aurora Ave NK, Seattle, WA 98133
Phone: (206) 366-4656
Opening hours: Tuesday-Sunday 12:00 noon-9:00 pm (Closed on monday）
